Termites are not so different to bees in many ways: both are social insects that live in large colonies and have several castes. Both use grooming as a first-line defence against potentially damaging diseases. 

Bayer sells a pestide called Premise that kills termites, which they market on the strength of its ability to interfere with the termites' grooming process. The active ingredient is Imidacloprid, and yet they claim never to have tested it on bees to see if it has a similar effect. Some would say that this a a significant oversight, while others might suggest that it is evidence of Bayer's usual habit of being 'economical with the truth'. 

Whatever we think about this, there is no statutory requirement for Bayer to conduct such research.

You can read Bayer's Premise leaflet here http://www.elitepest.com.sg/brochure/Premise_200SC.pdf

See http://tinyurl.com/6a7wa9z for an article about this issue in the Independent newspaper.

Amanda Williams worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a number of years, and now campaigns on behalf of bees, giving talks in schools and running an informative web site www.buzzaboutbees.net

Also in this edition, we launch Bee-Friendly Zones - see www.beefriendlyzone.com

I came away from the conference with several hours of audio recordings and after many more hours of editing, the result is a sort of impressionistic sound picture, which I hope you find interesting.

Some of the background music was provided by Homebrewed - http://www.myspace.com/homebrood_the_band/music - with Dan on the fiddle. There are also excerpts from Lara Conley's Bee Song - hear more of her music at http://www.myspace.com/laraconleymusic - with the full version to conclude the recording.

David Heaf is well known as the translator - together with his wife, Patricia - of the Abbé Warré's book about 'The People's Hive' into English. He gave the keynote speech at the First UK Natural Beekeeping Conference, which was warmly received and which generated much friendly discussion. 

David's new book, 'The Bee-Friendly Beekeeper' is available form Amazon and other outlets.

The music on this podcast is 'The Bee Song' by Lara Conley.

Italian beekeepers Renato Bologna and Marisa Valente have vowed to 'eat like bees' in protest against the use of neonicotinoids. They say that they now have scientific proof that pesticides are killing their bees, and they want the Italian govenment to take action to ban neonicotinoids on all crops. At present, their use is only banned on maize.

I spoke to Renato, whose English is a lot better than my Italian, and you can hear the result in today's podcast.

PLEASE SUPPORT Renato and Marisa by going to their web site and signing their petition - http://www.rfb.it/bastaveleni/adesioni.htm

The front page of their site is here - http://www.rfb.it/bastaveleni  If you do not speak Italian, I suggest using Google Chrome to view it and click the 'translate' button at the top.

Lara Conley has written a song that I think you will enjoy - and you can hear it for the first time here on the Barefoot Beekeeper Podcast. 

Lara has a web site on MySpace - - see www.myspace.com/laraconleymusic - and I hope you will listen to and buy some of her music. I think you will agree that with a song-writing talent and a voice like hers, she deserves a wider audience.

You can also see Lara on YouTube here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AvA1k4obO0

This podcast is based on a recording I made at Welcombe, North Devon earlier in July 2011 with a group of people on an 'Intermediate' level natural beekeeping course. We discussed the various ways to set up a top bar hive, including different entrance arrangements, top bar widths and the options for swarm management. 

There has been a good deal of controversy over the plans by the Co-Op to import up to 600 colonies of bees from New Zealand. I have myself been critical of introducing 'foreign' bees in such numbers, but I wanted to get the facts on the story, so I arranged with the Co-Op to interview Murray McGregor, the man in charge of the import.

This podcast will give you an opportunity to listen to what Murray has to say and to make up your own mind as to the rights and wrongs of the issue.

A reminder that if you have a question for me, or a subject you would like me to talk about, please send an email to [email protected].

The voicemail number is no longer operational, as nobody was using it and it was costing me money. If you really want to be able to talk to me, please make contact on Skype, where my username is beesontoast.

I do get a lot of emails and I simply don't have time to answer detailed questions, so if you have a beekeeping question, please remember the natural beekeeping forum at naturalbeekeeping.org, where you will find over 5,000 people willing to help you, some of whom may be in your area.

Recorded at the Sheepdrove Farm Conference Centre, June 29th 2011.

This event was organized by Samantha Roddick, and you will hear her after Peter Kindersley's introduction. Sam's talk is followed by mine, and this session finishes with Peter Melchett of the Soil Association.

I will upload more audio from this event in later podcasts.

The first UK Natural Beekeeping Conference will be held near Worcester in August, and we have decided to offer reduced rate tickets for students ad some day tickets for the Saturday. Please download a newe booking form from www.naturalbeekeepingalliance.com for details.

I have been working on a distance learning course for natural beekeeping, which will be offered by MyGardenSchool starting later this month. Details here - http://www.my-garden-school.com/course/introduction-to-natural-beekeeping/

We had another successful weekend event at Embercombe (see www.embercombe.co.uk) recently and you can hear some feedback from students - including a mystery TV presenter!

This episode closes with a recording I made recently of bees at the entrance to one of my hives. I hope you enjoy the mix of bee sounds and birdsong.

If you wish to be a part of this podcast, you can leave me a voicemail on +44 (0)203 239 1643 or email me - [email protected]

This interview was recorded in December 2010.